FIFTEEN years ago Leeds was just another northern town, caked in the grime of its dying industrial past. Today it sparkles. Its fast-changing skyline pierced with high-rise glass and chrome, its streets teeming with shoppers, Leeds has benefited from more than £2.5 billion in commercial property development over the past ten years. A further £4.9 billion is under construction or proposed.

Attracted by this urban renewal, an increasing number of private and public sector employers are choosing either to relocate to Leeds or to use the city as a northern base. The NHS Management Executive set the trend when it relocated from London in the early 1990s. Nearly 3,000 civil servants from the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions now operate in Leeds. The city also has a large manufacturing sector and has become one of the UK’s largest centres for financial and business services.

Employment: Throw a stick in the city centre and chances are you’ll hit a lawyer. With about 150 law firms the city is the largest legal centre in the UK outside London. Accountancy, banking and financial services companies also abound, and a third of UK internet traffic is hosted in Leeds. The retail and manufacturing sectors are strong and a number of successful medical technology companies are based here. Overall, the number of jobs in Leeds grew by 27 per cent between 1984 and 2003, the biggest increase of any UK city. The development department of Leeds City Council (www.leeds.gov.uk) has a specialist team to help organisations planning to relocate to Leeds.

Transport: Leeds City Council says that the average journey to work in Leeds is just 22 minutes, compared with 55 in London. Nevertheless, Leeds’ growing prosperity has undoubtedly been accompanied by increased traffic congestion. Long- heralded plans for a Supertram system are stalled by funding problems. Road links with the rest of the UK are good, via the M1, A1 and M62. Train times to London are a little more than two hours.

Housing: Those in the South East will find house prices low, but forget any idea of swapping your two-bed flat for a mansion. Two-bedroom apartments in the city centre begin at about £160,000, a semi in the more affluent northern suburbs at about £280,000 and that mansion in the “golden triangle” formed by Wetherby, Ilkley and Harrogate is likely to cost more than £1 million.

Education: With 277 schools and two universities, Leeds is the second-largest provider of education in England. In 2004, 45.4 per cent of 15-year-olds achieved GCSE grades A*-C or equivalent against a national average of 53.7. The best schools tend to be found in the north of the city.

Leisure: The gaping hole in Leeds’ pretensions to major European city status is its lack of a major concert venue. However, theatregoers are well served by the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Opera North and the Northern Ballet are both based in the city. Headingley is home to county and international cricket and both codes of rugby. Leeds United seek to reclaim former footballing glories at Elland Road.

Leeds’ variety of trendy bars, restaurants and designer shops prompted Lonely Planet’s 2005 guide to Great Britain to dub the city the “Knightsbridge of the North”.

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